Hebrews 11:8-16 “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.

And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”

ABRAHAM AND SARAH

God’s call of Abram is sudden and surprising. The Call: “go from [his] country, [his] people and [his] father’s household to the land [God] will show [him]” (Genesis 12:1). The Promise: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3). Abram’s response is swift and decisive – “Abram went, as the Lord had told him” (Genesis 12:4).

The Promise of a “Place” It is: an undisclosed and unrevealed place. completely unrealized in Abraham’s lifetime. Was Abraham’s willingness to leave home and launch into the unknown due to a conviction that the heavenly city described in Revelation 21 – a place of complete restoration for humanity and a place of God’s immediate presence – would one day come into being?

The Promise of a “People” The promise of a people is a complete impossibility given the circumstances of Abraham and Sarah’s life. The promise was only to be fulfilled through the birth of a son through Sarah. Despite the seeming impossibility of the promise, Abraham and Sarah trusted in God’s promise by faith and in her 90th year, Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac. Forty-one generations after Isaac, we arrive at Jesus.

Somehow in their moments of doubt and uncertainty, Abraham and Sarah remained fixed, not on the impossibilities that confronted them, but on Jesus and upon the promises of the God who had called them.

How do we respond to the impossible and improbable promises of God in our lives? The Improbable Promise of a Person “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. (John 3:16) The Promise of a People “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10)

The Promise of a Place “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come”. (Hebrews 13:14) “Our citizenship is in heaven …we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ”. (Philippians 3:20) As we await this place, we ought to “live out our time as foreigners here in reverent fear … [knowing] that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that [we] were redeemed …  but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:17).

A life of faith calls us into the improbable, the implausible and the impossible. It calls us into a life that doesn’t make sense without God, but into a life that with God is utterly reasonable.